


Room for Steven

by AbelQuartz



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Amethyst (Steven Universe) - Freeform, Angst, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Garnet (Steven Universe) - Freeform, Gen, Greg Universe (Steven Universe) - Freeform, Insomnia, Loneliness, Mother-Son Relationship, Rain, Slice of Life, Talking To Dead People, Thunder and Lightning, Thunderstorms, pearl (steven universe) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25246285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbelQuartz/pseuds/AbelQuartz
Summary: Steven’s just moved into the new house. In the middle of the night, he’s awoken by a combination of his thunderstorm and his own feelings. One has to roll away eventually.(A short canon-based story)
Relationships: Greg Universe & Steven Universe, Rose Quartz & Steven Universe
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Room for Steven

Well, he had to be responsible. Living in his own room in his own house was a task he knew he couldn’t tackle alone. Steven listened for the sounds of the Gems, but the cavernous walls echoed with the percussion of rain on the windows and wood. The darkness made the creaking stillness of the floorboards all the more ominous. The boy inhaled sharply as every rough angle was suddenly illuminated in a silent flash. Thunder rolled in after, mere seconds after the lightning showed him how alone he was.

At the end of the bed, there was a single box from his father that he hadn’t unpacked yet. New toys were out of the price range and out of the question. Greg Universe, however, was a master at finding dollar-store knickknacks and donations, things he knew his son would like. The boy turned back to the box and closed his teeth on the inside of his mouth before shaking his head.

When the thunder had woken him up, he had reached over and grabbed for a man who wasn’t there. The reflex of his father’s presence made the lack of a body all the more panic-inducing. Steven wasn’t scared of thunder, not really, but his dreams hadn’t been the most peaceful either. In the middle of the night, he knew he could have turned and held his dad, and if the man woke up then they could talk about the dreams. There was nobody else in the bed to make that happen.

Steven wondered how long he would miss the van. An actual bed was a gift and a godsend, and he fully expected the relaxation to follow. Right now, though, the softness was all the more infuriating for the lack of sleep he was having despite it. In the van, he could stretch out and lay on top of his father, hug a pillow, burrow into the sleeping back. And he could do all of these things here, but it was different. Too different.

His pajamas felt too sticky around him. The soft cotton was warm in the summer, and he knew it was an odd quirk to still be wearing something like that. His dad usually wore a sleeveless shirt and his shorts, something loose and comfortable, and the cool night air would take care of the rest. Maybe it was the humidity. Steven looked out the window into the darkness. When he focused his eyes, his ears followed, and the percussion of the house overtook him momentarily.

The pounding was too much. Everywhere was rain. Steven swallowed as he swiveled his head around, biting into his cheek harder now, sucking in shallow breaths. His bare feet felt uneven on the floor, and he had to sway from side to side to keep himself from falling over. The boy stumbled back until he sat on his mattress, grasping his torso, hands over elbows as he forced himself to pause.

“What’s going on?” he whispered to nobody. “I… Am I sick?”

That would be the worst possible outcome. It had been so soon since the move, barely a day, and his body was already rebelling. It wasn’t fair. He would be turning eleven this summer, and that was old enough to be able to sleep through the night by himself. Bravery was a necessity. Adventures with the Gems and living in this house meant he needed to be brave. If he couldn’t make it through the night, then they would send him back with his dad. 

Of course, Greg wouldn’t complain, and Steven knew he might sleep better. But that wasn’t what mattered. Gems didn’t get sick. Gems didn’t feel scared, ever. As far as he could tell, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl were able to take care of themselves, and they lived in the big house and were awesome without even trying. Steven clenched his hands into little fists, feeling the addition of humiliation welling up in the cocktail of emotions. His stomach could only contain so much.

The steps to get back up again were painful. Pain didn’t come in muscular tension or soreness, nor did it come from bruising or impact. It was the feeling of moving when he didn’t want to move, plain and simple. Steven forced his brow to unfurrow. This was not how he wanted to feel moving into the house, and he had never felt anything like this before. All that had happened was that he missed his dad. This was his house now, his home. It should have felt good.

Each stair creaked as Steven made his way downstairs. His bones gently tingled as he walked down one by one, his whole skeleton unsure how to carry the rest of him. 

“Urgh.”

At the end of the room, the warp pad sat silently, glistening in what little light there was. Steven had seen the Gems use it before, to get materials and go on short missions. One Gem would always stay behind while the house was being built. Now that things were completed, Steven got the feeling that they weren’t around. He didn’t have to speculate, though; they had said as much before putting him to bed.

Greg hadn’t been around to read to him that night. The storms meant that he had stayed inside, sheltered as he needed to be. There was no point in getting books wet or catching a cold from staying out in the rain. It was the right decision. But once more, Steven felt that odd twinge, and as long as he was alone, he could admit to himself that he had missed the man’s presence tonight. The Gems couldn’t exactly do what his dad did. They could be companionable, and they clearly cared, but it wasn’t the same. That was just how they were with Steven.

The boy turned and looked up as lightning struck again. In the flash, he could see the serene face of Rose Quartz hanging above the doorway. This wasn’t the time to think about her. He didn’t even know enough to have those thoughts in the first place. Steven shoved them back into his brain and padded across the floor as fast as he could to get to the bathroom.

Shutting the door, Steven turned on the light and sighed. Things were quieter in here for the time being. The rain was still ferocious, but the additional walls protected him from the swell of sound. In the respite, Steven could feel his body torn by the duel between sleep and bodily functions. Maybe that had been keeping him awake, and he hadn’t noticed until he shut himself in the bathroom. Business as usual.

After all of that, Steven closed the lid and flushed, the cold porcelain still on his skin. He walked over to wash his hands, soaping up before he looked in the mirror. Steven locked eyes with himself as he scrubbed. For the first time, he saw what he looked like when he was tired. His cheeks were no longer rosy, and there was a dark line, and indentation above them underneath his eyes. The deep browns were tinged red, and his plump curls seemed messy and undignified. The face that looked back at him was not pleasant. For some reason, this bothered Steven, but he wasn’t awake enough to deal with it.

And still he couldn’t feel the urge to get back into bed. Steven dried off his hands and let the towel flop back on the rack. Instead, he looked towards the closed door. The concept of privacy had always been strange to him. Respect for others’ was imperative, no matter how much his mind wanted to ask a thousand questions. Having closed doors of his own made the bathroom and the house feel humanized, like he was living in a zoo enclosure built specifically for him, to maximize his comfort.

The door meant he couldn’t be bothered. The Gems knew better than to barge in, as far as he knew. With a sigh, Steven plodded back down the toilet and sat on top of the lid. He reached back and pulled his pajama shirt off before gently resting it on the edge of the tub. The air made the tiny hairs on his chest and neck tingle. They pointed away from his baby fat, as if attracted by the lightning outside.

His own Gem looked like it should have been heavier than it was. On the beach, Steven had held up algae-covered rocks the size of his own gemstone, feeling the heft in his hands before tossing them into tide pools to hear them break the surface. He let his fingers rise up to gently run over the surface of the facets; truthfully, he never liked to touch his gem, not even when he was in the shower. Whenever he thought about the sensation, the words he wanted to express it couldn’t make their way to his mouth. Every other part of his body had a description attached, but not this one.

“Are you the one making me sick? Can Gems even get sick?”

As far as he was aware, his dad hadn’t mentioned any times where he had been sick as a baby, and his memories going back hadn’t had any colds or coughs associated with them. Allergies didn’t count, and they weren’t that bad anyway. This was something brand new. But even as he sat there, Steven had the feeling that this wasn’t an affliction of the body, not like that. He recognized patterns.

There was a sensation in his stomach when he got yelled at by a restaurant owner one time for breaking a plate, and when Ronaldo down at the fry shop had been ranting to him about a television show that Steven had actually liked. The apologies had overwhelmed his trembling lips, and there wasn’t anything to do in moments like that but let his body start to break down. 

Steven pushed his fingertips into his belly and grimaced. Nothing bad was happening now except for the storm, and that wasn’t his fault, unless he had weather-controlling powers he wasn’t aware of. As cool as that would be, now wasn’t the time to hypothesize. What he wanted the most right now was for Pearl to be able to explain what could be happening to him, or for Garnet to be there as a faux-guardian against the intangible, or even for Amethyst to tell him to knock it off and that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Most of all, he wanted to be able to go back into bed and curl up with his dad. But that wasn’t going to happen. Greg Universe was back alone in his van, like he had been for the years leading up to meeting Rose Quartz. The bed was large and empty, and was waiting for him like a puddle of rainwater waiting for a child’s boot. Going back to bed right now would only serve to remind him that his father wasn’t there.

He couldn’t rely on anyone else to fix this for him. On top of it all, Steven felt a strange rush of guilt that he hadn’t come to this conclusion before. Greg had stopped coming to read him books because he had insisted he was old enough to sleep by himself. He could wash and clothe and feed himself if need be with what was in the house. Pearl only did his laundry because she had insisted upon it for years. She liked cleaning, but Steven knew she didn’t have to clean up everything. Some messes he had to tackle himself.

The boy stood up and put his shirt back on. He tugged his hands through the sleeves and patted his belly, feeling the bump of his facets. There was nobody else like him in the universe. Steven wondered if he could ever meet someone like him, a human who could be part of the Gems. His dad didn’t count. Greg was too human. 

The bathroom darkened once more as he shut off the light. Stepping back onto the main floor, Steven closed the door, then jumped as a burst of lightning and a roll of thunder shook overhead. He could feel the vibrations through his feet, up his legs and into his thighs. In the flash, he caught sight of the portrait above the door once more.

Rose Quartz didn’t seem at all perturbed by the storm. Her stoic face refused to acknowledge any presence but her own, in peace, in silence. It was the most beautiful painting that Steven had seen. One day, he would have to ask his dad where they got it from. Steven imagined that the portrait had captured everything about his mother. He could feel her calm softness, the soothing power of a flower’s scent, the togetherness that she brought to the house. Everyone but Steven had known her. Everyone, including Steven, loved her.

If she was around, they wouldn’t be living with the Gems, or maybe they’d all be together, with his dad and his mom and Pearl and Garnet and Amethyst all eating and laughing together under one roof. She would teach him all the things he didn’t know about himself, and he could teach her about being human and growing up with his father. From all the things he had been told, Steven knew in his heart that his mother’s greatest joy would have been to watch him grow up. 

His smile faded. She wasn’t just his mother. She had responsibilities towards the Gems and towards the Earth. She was a defender. Rose wouldn’t have had time for him like how he imagined. Even his dad had to work and provide for himself. Steven would always have to be alone at some point or another. Like Rose, like Greg, he would have to grow up and learn how to explore a lonely universe.

Steven looked back at the warp pad. The Gems weren’t going to be coming until morning. They didn’t eat breakfast and they didn’t shower — which was a little strange, but Steven didn’t want to ask questions about that now. His body wasn’t giving up its quest to tell him about what was wrong. He sighed and patted his gemstone. Even though he knew what was wrong, it wasn’t going away.

The rain continued to beat on the windows and walls, overpowering the sound of Steven’s bare feet as he made his way to the staircase and sat down. When he looked up, he could imagine that he was a baby again, watching his mother from her lap as she held him, or from the cradle as she looked down into his eyes. He squirmed; it was a silly thought, an immature image, but he couldn’t help it. It was an experience he could never have again, and it made the longing even more potent.

“Hey, mom,” he mumbled.

Even if someone was around to hear him, his voice was barely audible over the storm. Steven tried to find a beat in the rain, keeping time by tapping his toes along to the water. Rose, of course, said nothing. In his heart, Steven was secretly hoping for some sort of Gem magic, a memory or a recovered recording, her voice talking to him from beyond time.

“The Gems are on a mission again, um, and I bet it’s not raining where they are,” Steven said. “Amethyst said they could go all over the world. Why is there Gem stuff all over the world, anyway? Are there other Gems out there?”

Besides his guardians, though, Steven hadn’t heard them talk about any other members of their magical species. He wondered where they came from, where his mother had been before, how she had met his father. There were so many questions he could ask, and when he tried to open his mouth and ask his mother, all he saw was her closed and perfect smile. Silence.

“I guess I’m old enough for it to be weird, right? All the time, with dad, and we pretty much shared a bed in the van. But now I have my own! And it’s comfy, and Pearl lets me eat cereal and chips on it, but I have to sweep off the crumbs so I don’t get all scratchy at night.”

Steven had never spoken to his mother like this before. He could pretend that the rumbling thunder was a response. Rose was softer than that, at least she would be around him. For all her valiant strength, Steven couldn’t imagine her as anything but loving. In storms like this, maybe she would have come to his room to comfort him first, before he woke up and rushed to jump under the covers in search of hugs.

“I’m not really scared of...all the thunder and lightning,” Steven sighed. “I’m just kind of feeling alone with dad by the car wash and all the Gems gone, and I’m just here. Just Steven.”

It couldn’t last forever. Once he grew up, he could wake up in the middle of the night and go on missions with the Gems, without a bedtime and without feeling tired. The four of them could go on missions and save the world, and the next day he could tell his dad all about the adventure that he had. The plan was perfect, and the future was bright.

Thinking about the future could only do so much. The weight, the twist, it was like a bruise or one of the cramps that Greg Universe had had, a nasty leg knot that Steven had helped rub out while the man was out of work. Steven had had plenty of cuts and bruises from running around town and scraping himself on the rocks and asphalt. Nothing stuck like this, though. The problem was more in the heart than it was in the body.

“Maybe if you were here, you could help me out. Parents always know what to do. Dad’s a good dad, and you’d be a good mom.”

Steven turned his head to look at the darkness of the house. In his head, he could imagine in the morning the smell of breakfast, his father toasting waffles and Pearl mixing tea, with Rose and Amethyst putting fruit in little bowls and Garnet squeezing some orange juice. He smiled to himself for just a moment. He could imagine a family as they woke up. The Gems would be there in the morning for him. Everyone would love each other. 

The lightning flashed again, silently this time before the clouds broke overhead. The overhead beams split into geometric angles, white and murky green in the light of the storm. Shelves and stools and decor all cast terrible shadows where there should never have been, shapes that had no name and grotesque outlines of the household. It was filled with uncertainty, as was Steven. His imagination couldn’t stand up under the weight of the real right now. There would be no breakfast for all of them together, certainly not for Rose. Maybe, Steven thought as he moved his hand away from his stomach, that was what he was feeling: realization. Without his mother, he would always be lonely. Loved ones were irreplaceable. He was soaking in retrospective loss. The portrait and the gemstone were all he had left.

He looked from his stomach to the face.

“Sorry. I’ll go to bed. Love you.”

Whether or not he was sleeping was a question he couldn’t answer quite yet. Storms had passed before, and he had been okay. The world had been standing in the morning. It was the same beach, the same sun, the same east coast roads of cracked blacktop and fading paint. He would eat a familiar donut, or have some familiar cereal, and maybe the Gems would be back to tell him about their mission and maybe they wouldn’t. He could wait for their return. In the meantime, he could always go to his dad once the storm was over.

The Gems could only do so much. Greg Universe was the only father he had in the world. As he crawled under the covers, Steven put one pillow under his head, then took another, and turned on his side. He hugged the cushion, squeezing it as the house shook with the boom of thunder once more. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that it was the man there, a sleepless man who pretended to rest for his son’s sake, a man who would sing him back to sleep, a man who didn’t care whether or not his son was grown up. With the weight of the comforter and the warmth of his pajamas, Steven felt safe and secret again. He could admit, for just a second, that he didn’t want to grow up either. Nobody had to know. There was nobody around to tell.


End file.
